


In the Aftermath

by velociraptor52



Category: The Mummy (1999)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27037858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velociraptor52/pseuds/velociraptor52
Summary: "Jonathan liked that reassurance from Ardeth—he knew everything would be all right."  What happened to Jonathan after the scarab beetle incident.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	In the Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> My take on what happens after Jonathan's beetle incident. (When I was younger I always wondered why Jonathan's hand didn't start bleeding right away after the beetle dug its way into his skin so I put it down to magic/mysterious mystic stuff.) Unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own.

There had been something weird about the scarab beetle—the one that had burrowed its way into Jonathan's hand, scurrying under his skin ( _great, now I'm going to have nightmares about that_ , he realized with a groan). Something magical and mystical. It had entered his skin without leaving a single mark—he glanced at his hand gloomily, moving his fingers, bending them, scrunching his hand into a fist—and that was odd in and of itself. By all rights, his hand should have bled.

And it wasn't. There wasn't a mark on his palm at all. "So weird," he muttered to himself.

"Shirt off, Jonathan," Rick ordered.

"I beg your pardon?" Jonathan asked indignantly.

"Shirt off. We need to get that bleeding to stop," he added as Ardeth tore off a long strip of black cloth from his own outfit.

Jonathan sighed heavily and started unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. "I don't see why we can't just leave it-" he hissed in pain as he removed the shirt from his body, as removing his shirt bothered his injury.

"That's why we can't leave it. Do you want it to get infected and lose an arm? No, I think not," Rick answered for Jonathan. He grabbed the black cloth from Ardeth and began the process of elaborately bandaging Jonathan's shoulder.

"Here," Ardeth said with a motion of his hand. Jonathan glanced up. Ardeth was holding another black strip of cloth—one he had ripped from his own outfit. "For your hand."

"Thanks but"-he held up his hand, palm out toward Ardeth-"not really bleeding here. Unlike my shoulder," he added pointedly to Rick.

"I said I was sorry," Rick said exasperatedly as he tied off the cloth with a grunt. Jonathan yelped in pain. "I'm sorry," he repeated, a little bit gentler this time. "Did you want that thing burying itself into your brain?"

"Can't have been worse than the searing pain from your knife digging into my skin."

Rick grinned down at him and patted him on the injured shoulder, which elicited another yelp of pain from Jonathan.

Ardeth flinched slightly at Jonathan's yelp.

Jonathan saw him do so. He grabbed his shirt and put it back on, starting to button it up before he realized there were only a couple of buttons left on it. It took him a moment to realize Ardeth was still staring at him with those dark eyes of his.

"What?" he asked shortly, somewhat impatiently.

"How much does it hurt?"

"What does it matter to you?"

Ardeth shrugged.

Jonathan sighed and moved his shoulder tenderly. "Christ, I...it feels like someone stuck a thousand hot skewers in my body."

"The scarab beetle?"

Jonathan shook his head. "I'm just sore. All the running around, plane crashes, being eaten alive by a dust cloud, protecting Evy and..." he sighed once more. "And I didn't even do a good job of that, did I?"

"It wasn't your fault."

"I know, I know that...well," Jonathan said as he stood. "I'll help you get these rocks moved."

"Let's not. I don't want you bleeding to death on me," Rick said.

"I'll be perfectly fine! Now come on." As he took a step toward the rock pile Ardeth moved to stand in front of him. "What?" he asked in exasperation.

"Maybe it would be best if you rested for a moment."

"I'm fine!" Jonathan insisted. "It's just a flesh wound. Nothing to worry about."

Ardeth glanced aside at Rick. Rick shrugged. "Hey, with three people it'll go way faster. Let him do it if he feels like it. Better than him barking out orders as to which rocks to move." At that comment, Ardeth nodded and went back to work moving and shifting the rocks.

...

Jonathan felt something wet on the palm of his hand, which he thought was water. Maybe there was a drip somewhere and it got on the rocks, and because he had handled the rocks he just got water on his hand. Maybe that was it.

As he dropped the rock down at his side, away from the pile, he saw something brown on the gray stone. As he looked closely at it he saw red drops appear in the sand as if they had dropped from the ceiling, from the sky, from the... _from my hand_ , he realized.

He glanced at his hand, the one the beetle had cut open mystically, the one the beetle didn't even leave a mark there, and now...

"Um..." he said weakly.

"Come on, Jon, can't have us doing all the work again," Rick said with a grunt as he rolled a boulder away from the rock pile.

"Yeah, yeah..." he said, his gaze caught by the blood that ran down in small rivulets down the palm of his hand, snaking down his arm, dripping toward the floor.

"Hey, you okay?" Rick asked, not even looking back at Jonathan. "You're being awfully quiet."

Jonathan nodded, hearing the sound fade around him, hearing his heart beat loudly in his chest. Then he heard someone curse, he felt hands on him, on his shoulder, on his side, on his arm, and he felt those hands push him to the ground. It was those same hands that took his injured hand and started wrapping the black cloth around it. Jonathan glanced up to see Ardeth work fervently at wrapping his hand.

"You think he lost a lot of blood?"

"Can't tell," Ardeth answered Rick's question. At this point Ardeth looked up, meeting Jonathan's gaze. "Are you all right?" he asked, laying a hand on his shoulder, the uninjured one. "Jonathan." He squeezed his shoulder gently and called his name again, which brought him out of his trance. "Jonathan, are you all right?"

"Uh...yeah. Yeah." He gave a slight grin just to appease Ardeth. "Can't stand the sight of blood."

Ardeth nodded, tying off the cloth on Jonathan's hand. "Maybe it would be best if you left the work to us."

Jonathan nodded. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. We are almost done anyway. You can rest."

Jonathan nodded again. "In that case, I think I'll close my eyes for a bit," he said as he leaned back against the wall, the stone cool on his back.

He felt Ardeth squeeze his uninjured shoulder gently before he moved back off to help Rick. Jonathan liked that reassurance from Ardeth—he knew everything would be all right.


End file.
